Compiler Bugs Worst Bugs

davmac

4 years ago

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I think that compiler bugs – the kind where they produce the wrong code, i.e. an incorrect compilation – are perhaps the worst kind of bug, because they can be very difficult to identify and they can cause subtle issues (including security issues) in other code that should work correctly. That’s why this GCC bug bothers me a lot. Not only is it a “wrong code” bug, but it is easy to reproduce without using any language extensions or unusual compiler options.

It’s easy to reproduce, and it’s obviously wrong. Somehow the compiler is managing to mess up the calculation of (2 * 2 + 6 * 5). And yet, it’s classified as Priority 2. And furthermore, GCC 4.9.3 was just recently released, with this bug still present. It makes me start to wonder about the quality of GCC. I’m waiting for this to be fixed before I move to the 4.9 series (5.x series is way too new for my liking, though I might skip over 4.9 if 5.2 is released in the near future).

I’d like to run my compiler benchmarking tests on LLVM 3.6.1 and GCC, but I’ll hold off for a bit. I have done some quick testing with LLVM though and I have to say it is exceeding expectations.